Employers say job fair applicants met hiring criteria

The best news to come out of Tuesday's "mega'' job fair at the BB&T Center is Sunrise was that most employers said they will easily hire for the 1,000 jobs that were available.

Many employers said they were pleasantly surprised at the high quality of job candidates. The big turnout helped; 9,000 job seekers came to the job fair. There were so many applicants that the job fair stayed open an extra two hours.

The Check Cashing Store, which was taking the time to interview workers — and not just collect resumes — usually hires 10 to 20 people met at a job fair, said Marissa McLean, human resources manager.

"I'm running background and credit checks for about 25 people that we want to offer positions to," said McLean on Wednesday. And there's another stack of applications that she hasn't even begun going through yet.

"We will end up with maybe 20 or 30, which is pretty good," McLean said.

Individuals getting offers will be those who have an "outgoing personality" and the "ability to sell," she said.

Sunrise-base customer service company Alorica saw about 500 job seekers on Tuesday, collected about half of their resumes and scheduled 75 interviews for Wednesday. More interviews will be scheduled in another week, said Davionne Dobson, recruiter for Alorica.

Not only was there a "tremendous" turnout for the Job News USA job fair, Dobson said, but 70 percent to 80 percent applicants also were "highly qualified" for the sales and customer service jobs Alorica is filling.

"A lot of people were very well prepared," said Dobson, who credits Workforce One and other community employment agencies for helping job candidates with their resumes and other job-search preparation. "That's usually not the case. It's an improvement."

Discount grocery store Aldi, which has nine stores in South Florida and plans to add 30 to 40 stores, was the most popular table at the job fair. Aldi's operations manager Bruna Maraccini said the store only collects applications and takes questions at job fairs. Then it schedules interviews over the following two weeks.

Home Depot was at the job fair looking to fill about 300 part-time jobs in its Broward stores to boost its spring staff.

"We feel very strongly that we're going to be able to fill the positions we have open," said Joe Santelia, district human resource manager.

Home Depot directed job fair attendees to apply online, saying they'll follow up with interviews in the next few weeks.

Applying online wasn't enough for electrician Marcus House. The 37-year-old said he came to the job fair in hopes of getting an interview or even a job. After being directed to apply online, House left the job fair and drove to the nearest Home Depot to apply in-store and leave his resume with the store manager.

Santelia said it's actually important to learn how to apply for a Home Depot job online because applicants often check too many boxes on store locations and job preferences.

"If you really want to get into Home Depot, be a little flexible," Santelia said.